Open The Taps to lobby for craft-beer consumers

Industry lobbyists played a major role the past few legislative sessions in derailing efforts to amend Texas’ beer laws to help small brewers and brewpub owners who want to package some of their beer for sale off premises.

Now comes Open The Taps, a fledgling nonprofit founded by a group of Houston-area beer enthusiasts to lobby on behalf of consumers. They want lawmakers to know that it isn’t just the craft brewers, the major breweries and the distributors who have a stake in the state’s three-tier distribution system.

Beer drinkers are directly affected as well.

“The fourth tier wants to speak up,” says Barley Vine blogger Ted Duschesne, president of the nascent organization. “… The fourth tier has never had a voice in anything and we want to give them that voice.”

Open The Taps (Duchesne says he put the application for 501(c)(6) status in the mail Friday) will model its efforts on groups like Free The Hops, which successfully lobbied this summer for changes to Alabama state law that allow breweries to open on-site taprooms and offer tours. Another nonprofit, Raise Your Pints, is pushing to remove alcohol limits in Mississippi that keep out many craft beers and imports.

In a soon-to-launch fund-raising effort, Open The Taps will attempt to recruit 100 people willing to donate $100 apiece, in each of Texas’ four biggest metro areas: Houston, Austin, San Antonio and Dallas/Fort Worth. This is to be seed money for a protracted lobbying and educational campaign to make state laws and liquor regulations friendlier to the craft-beer industry. Other memberships will be available for smaller commitments.

Joining Duchesne in this effort are several folks familiar to many in Houston’s beer community, among them Chris White, a homebrewer and prolific Twitter commenter on matters of beer, and Cathy Clark, organizer of last year’s Monsters of Beer Festival and the quarterly Camp Beer tastings. The other founding members are Leslie Sprague, who will handle PR and social media efforts, and John Speights.

I’ve gotten to know each of them over the past two years while writing this blog. They’re all passionate about good beer and convinced that a grass-roots effort will help get bills like the recently defeated HB 602, which would’ve allowed small breweries to distribute a small amount of beer on site, and HB 660, which would’ve let brewpub owners package some of their product for sale off premises.

“When 602 and 660 didn’t pass,” Duchesne said at an Open The Taps meeting the other night at Liberty Station, “I got mad.” Referring to the compromises built into the small-brewery bill, he added, “If 602 can’t pass, what the hell is going to pass?”

Yet the gathered group insisted that they are not there simply on behalf of Texas brewers. They will push for changes in labeling requirements and a reduction in the fee to bring in new beers. Both issues have been cited by out-of-state brewers as impediments to doing business here. Such changes could lead to increased competition for the Texas brewers.

But as White said, this is about choice. There’s a lot more choice on the bar taps and store shelves than there has been in the past, and there is no guarantee that the craft-beer boom isn’t a bubble waiting to burst.

“But I don’t care,” said White. “I want to buy all the beers that I want.” And he doesn’t want state laws and regulations keeping any of those beers out of reach.

That get-together with those guys at Liberty Station led to my story in today’s Business section. You can read it here.

You can also visit the Open The Taps website and Facebook page or follow them on Twitter @OpenTheTaps. There wasn’t much content on those sites late last week, but that will change. In the meantime, these are places to link up with like-minded beer lovers.

You aren’t going to get the legislation you want until you make a sizable donation to the governors re-election fund or his fund for running for president. Then and only then can you get “emergency” legislation rushed through the state legislature to support your stand. The drug companies know that, the ultrasound machine companies know that, the construction companies know that. You need to do the same.

If the “little” beer companies in Texas want to change the laws, they make the best enticements to do just that. I expect St. Arnolds to publicise the changes they want and to help develop a voting constituentcy to help educate out state house and senate citizens from our respective home districts. Don’t leave it to Austin because the lobbyist have them wrapped up, up there; let us educate them at home. Lead on St. Arnold!, we can have our beer and drink it too!!

The local distributors have our reps bought and sold. The stuff that the major brewers make and sell shouldn’t even be allowed to call be called beer. Real beer doesn’t have corn, rice or citris flavorings. The real threat to the big brewers is an educated consumer who knows what the real thing is supposed to be.